Letters to the Front
by Kalira69
Summary: Sakura, as both head medic and close friend and advisor to the Hokage, is not lacking for news from back home even as she manages the field hospital at the front lines, but her most prized letters are not those advising her of news on the war and politics. (Written for Sakura Month, Day 5)


Written for Day 5 of Sakura Month: Love Letters

* * *

Sakura huffed out a rough breath and straightened from attending her now-stable patient with a muted wince for her aching spine, rubbing the back of her wrist across her brow. "All right, what's next?" she asked, looking around the tent.

"Ah- Jounin-san?"

Sakura tilted her head and looked around to find a diffident-looking civilian shifting back and forth from foot to foot. She raised an eyebrow. "Looking for me?" she asked, glancing beyond him for one of the other medic nin.

"This came for you!"

Sakura accepted the pair of scrolls from him, still a little thrown - any important communication, orders or updates or the like, she should surely be receiving via a chuunin messenger at least - but nodded. "Thank you. Anything else?"

"No, Jounin-san! Delivery to the jounin-san watching the medic-tent, pink hair!"

Sakura snorted, but nodded again. "Run along then." She examined the jikusaki on the scrolls, and tucked one inside her vest before moving towards an unoccupied cot - half of it was taken up by bloodied and torn fabric, but that was why the flat surface was still open to use. She unsealed the remaining scroll and bags of fresh medical supplies flowed out of it around her, filling the available space on the bed and beginning to stack on the floor as well.

Bless Shikamaru, Sakura thought, relief washing through her as she ran her fingers over her new inventory. Their supplies had been running painfully thin as more and more injuries came back from the battlefield - along with Sakura's reserves, and those of all the other medics, but those weren't quite so easily replenished, and there _were_ no more of them to be spared for the front.

Fresh supplies meant the battles they fought to treat all the injured adequately would be a little less hard, however. Sakura rubbed her face and sank to her knees, taking a deep breath.

She only spared a moment to her relief, and then she lowered her hands, drew another slow, settling breath, and rose. She called for her team to apprise them of the new supplies and get them squared away across the medical tents where they would be quick to hand for everyone who needed them.

Sakura didn't have a breath of free time to give to the other scroll until late that evening, in her own tent, while she was wolfing down a meal she probably should have eaten hours earlier. It, too, was sealed, a key that answered to her easily, but this time the release brought no deluge of its contents, only a small sunflower, a bento, and a letter tumbled out onto her cramped desk.

Sakura ran her fingers over the flower's petals and peeked inside the bento - handmade sweets, kept fresh by the seal; she grinned - before opening the letter itself. Hinata's delicate, graceful calligraphy - neater even than Sakura's, though also far more ornamental - filled the page. She settled back, focused more on the letter than the barely-palatable rations she was eating. It might be one of many she had received from the village this week, but she treasured and had anticipated this one even more.

Shikamaru's letter had included a frank assessment of what Sakura could expect to deal with both coming into her field hospital and with the upcoming battles. Naruto's letter had been friendly and cheerful and updated her on negotiations; Sasuke's had been a little more realistic - and much less cheerful - but similar. She had some hope that the war they fought would soon be brought to a close - not soon enough, and more ninja would bleed and probably die under her hands before then, but there was an end in sight now.

She knew Hinata was currently embroiled in the political _nightmare_ behind this war, and the negotiations to end it - and a good thing it was, Hinata was sweet-natured and forgiving but her optimism had a steel core of realism and along with her protective nature it made her sharp and brilliant at the diplomatic table. Naruto was an excellent peacemaker but his own steel core was rather different - he needed . . . shepherding when it came to the hardline side of things, sometimes.

That was a good part of what Shikamaru, Hinata - Neji, standing with his cousin on occasion - and Sasuke were for, at his side. Sakura herself as well, when she had the time away from the hospital - or, as in cases like this, the front lines.

 _This_ letter was free of any discussion of politics or war, however. Hinata mentioned nothing of the political mess or the strain she must be under; instead her words swept Sakura away to memories of long afternoons spent in each other's company - either stolen away from the village entirely or somehow distanced from everyone else even as they walked through its centre. And happier for it.

Sakura smiled as she remembered, letting the fond warmth surge up in her chest. It pushed away the dark cloud that had been beginning to tangle around her mind with the thoughts of long diplomatic talks in the past - no few of them with an undercurrent of possible attack at any moment. All of them wedged into days that were already incredibly long with her work at the hospital; she had stepped into Tsunade's shoes and promptly begun a crusade to build in even more improvements than her shishou already had.

Sakura smoothed her thumb over her lover's letter and bit carefully into one of the sweets as she read.

 _Every quiet moment I am spared is precious and yet somehow lesser without you there to share in the beauty of it with me, my dearest,_ Hinata had written, each character formed with sweeping strokes that brought to Sakura's mind the smooth grace inherent in every movement she made. _The joy to be found in every moment, every touch when I have you, my life's greatest beauty and pleasure, at my side and sharing in my life is incomparable and I long only for your return._

A smile curved Sakura's lips and she sighed, closing her eyes for a long moment as Hinata's pretty smile, delicate voice, and shimmering eyes rose in her mind. The thoughts of her lover brought with them the tantalising sense-memory of silken hair and elegant, tough, yet improbably _soft_ hands sliding over her skin.

Sakura shivered, toes curling and thigh muscles tightening, but she slowly pushed the feelings back. Not without some regret, even as she returned her focus properly to reading the letter.

Hinata was never _blatant_ , and Sakura doubted that would ever change, but she had grown far beyond the retiring figure she had once been, so shy she could barely speak. Sakura strangled back a low moan as she read the teasing words Hinata had used to express her longing for Sakura, pressing her thighs together.

She sank into the world called up by her lover's elegant prose, a part of her mind on memories and part on what she might write in response.

She smiled, a shiver running down her spine, and her fingers curled a little tighter around Hinata's letter as she neared the end.

 _We are, I believe, nearing a solution for this . . . calamitous interruption to Naruto's wholehearted attempt for peace. I can only hope it is brought to an end soon, and you - all of you - may return home._

 _I will be waiting for you when you return, my dearest. Keep yourself safe as you may, as well as those you protect, until you can come home to my arms. You carry my heart with you._

Sakura sighed, sinking back in her chair with a warm pressure twisting around her heart. She stroked the letter, holding it between her hands and idly allowing her eyes to follow the lines Hinata had written again without reading them.

Eventually she folded it away, pulling out a sealing scroll of her own and sliding it in along with all her other private correspondence - possibly the security of sealing it where only she could retrieve it was overkill in some cases, but it was also much neater to contain all her letters in a single scroll. She left the sweets out for the moment and propped the sunflower along the back of her desk as she pulled a fresh sheet of paper and a pencil to her.

Sakura should sleep, take the rest while she could, she knew quite well, but she was willing to drive herself a little harder for this . . . and the response she so wanted to write was welling up fresh in her mind _now_.

 _My darling lover,_ Sakura began, her writing a little scratchy and uneven - combination of the rough paper and a somewhat worn pencil.

 _I, too, long for my return home - both for the cessation of this awful conflict that must happen before I may do so, and for the return to you . . . and to rest once more at your side, in your bed._ Sakura grinned, tapping the back end of her pencil against her lip and her toes against the dirt floor of her tent as she considered how far she might press this.

 _You say I am the greatest beauty and pleasure in your life, and I say in all honesty you are the lovely peace and serenity blooming in mine. I desperately miss both, as well as the delight to be found in your touch._

Sakura shivered, closing her eyes as she thought of Hinata's quick, clever hands on her body. She swallowed hard, pencil moving quicker, letting the words she wrote grow more than a little bolder, although she couldn't help a bit of regret she would not be at her lover's side when she read them. Both to watch Hinata's reaction to the promises Sakura made and to offer up - and bask in - the fulfilment of them all.


End file.
